Way to Heaven. Juan Mayorga

      Radio includes: The Archers, Westway, Brought to Book, Street and Lane, The Lion of Chechnya, Comeback, A Mysterious Affair at Stiles, A Certain Justice, Mnemonic, The Newbury Arms (Co writer and performer).

      Claire Lichie

      Theatre includes: All the Right People Come Here (Bush); Miss Private View, 3some in Soho (Soho); Cruising (Tristan Bates); Lovers (Gielgud); The Witch of Edmunton, Yerma (Southwark); Love’s Labour’s Lost (Etcetera); The Snow Queen (national tour); Blue Funk (Old Red Lion). Television includes: Agony.

      Film includes: Inbetweeners.

      Alexander Main

      Alexander has trained at The Harris Drama School. Film includes: Heidi.

      Way to Heaven is Alexander’s theatrical debut.

      Emma Pinto

      Way To Heaven is Emma’s theatrical debut.

      Abraham Pirry

      Abraham has trained at The Harris Drama School.

      Film includes: The Man Who Cried, Just Visiting.

      Adverts include: Cancer Research, British Airways.

      Way to Heaven is Abraham’s theatrical debut.

      Jeff Rawle

      For Royal Court: The Arbor, The Irish Soldier, Bent. Other theatre includes: Noises Off (RNT); Neville’s Island, Queerfolk (Nottingham Playhouse); Releevo, Living With Your Enemies (Soho Poly); Reluctant Heroes, Elephant Man (Churchill, Bromley); Butley (Fortune); The Caretaker (Thorndike); Equus (Aldwych); Five Finger Exercise (Upstream). Television includes: Spooks, A Touch of Frost, Holby City, Ultimate Force, Doc Martin, William and Mary, The Royal, The Deputy, Heartbeat, Death in Holy Orders, Take a Girl Like You, I Saw You, Fish, Microsoap, Neville’s Island, Faith in the Future, Drop the Dead Donkey, Sharma, Blood and Peaches, Lords of Misrule, Look at the State We’re in Chief, The Life and Times of Henry Pratt, Medics, Casualty, Minder, Rides, Moon and Sun, Eastenders, A Perfect Hero, The Gift, Vote for Them, South of the Border, Run for the Lifeboat, Boon, Fortunes of War, Call Me Mister, Remmington Steel, Country and Irish, Dr Who, Singles Weekend, Bergerac, Claire, Juliet Bravo, Singles, Wilde Alliance, Love on the Dole, Death of a Young Man, The Water Maiden, Billy Liar.

      Film includes: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Black Ball, Inspector Calls II, Baal, A Hitch in Time, Correction Please, Rating Notman, Duchamp, Crystal Gazing, Awayday, Laughterhouse, Doctors and the Devils.

      Dominic Rowan

      For the Royal Court: Forty Winks.

      Theatre includes: Dream Play, Iphigenia at Aulis, Mourning Becomes Electra, Three Sisters, The Talking Cure, Private Lives (RNT); Lobby Hero (Donmar/New Ambassadors); Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Talk Of The City (RSC); Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Crucible, Sheffield); Look Back In Anger, The Rivals, Charlie’s Aunt (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Playhouse Creatures (Old Vic); Talk of the City (Young Vic); A Collier’s Friday Night (Hampstead).

      Television includes: North Square, A Rather English Marriage, Between the Lines, Devil’s Advocate, No Bananas, Emma, Swallow, Rescue Me, Lost World, Hearts and Bones, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Silent Witness (VI), Holby City, Celeb, Doc Martin.

      Film includes: David, Tulse Lupers’ Suitcases, Pressure Points.

      Radio includes: Talk of the City, Mill on the Floss.

      Johanna Town (lighting designer)

      For the Royal Court: Talking to Terrorists (with Out of Joint); My Name is Rachel Corrie, A Girl in a Car with a Man, Under the Whaleback, Plasticine, Mr Kolpert, The Kitchen, Shopping & Fucking (with Out of Joint/West End); The Steward of Christendom (with Out of Joint/Broadway).

      Other theatre includes: Guantanamo (Tricycle/West End/NY); Macbeth (Out of Joint/World tour); Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (Northampton Theatre Royal); Via Dolorosa (West End); How Love is Spelt (Bush); The Permanent Way, She Stoops to Conquer, A Laughing Matter (Out of Joint/RNT); I.D. (Almeida & BBC 3); Badnuff, Mr Nobody (Soho); A Doll’s House (Southwark); Six Degrees of Separation (Royal Exchange); The Dumb Waiter (Oxford); Brassed Off (Liverpool Playhouse/Birmingham Rep); Popcorn, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Liverpool Playhouse); Feelgood, Little Malcolm & His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (Hampstead/West End); Rose (RNT/Broadway); Top Girls (West End); Arabian Nights, Our Lady of Sligo (NY).

      Johanna has been Head of Lighting at the Royal Court since 1990.

      THE ENGLISH STAGE COMPANY AT THE ROYAL COURT

      The English Stage Company at the Royal Court opened in 1956 as a subsidised theatre producing new British plays, international plays and some classical revivals.

      The first artistic director George Devine aimed to create a writers’ theatre, ‘a place where the dramatist is acknowledged as the fundamental creative force in the theatre and where the play is more important than the actors, the director, the designer’. The urgent need was to find a contemporary style in which the play, the acting, direction and design are all combined. He believed that ‘the battle will be a long one to continue to create the right conditions for writers to work in’.

      Devine aimed to discover hard-hitting, uncompromising writers whose plays are stimulating, provocative and exciting’. The Royal Court production of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger in May 1956 is now seen as the decisive starting point of modern British drama and the policy created a new generation of British playwrights. The first wave included John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, John Arden, Ann Jellicoe, N F Simpson and Edward Bond. Early seasons included new international plays by Bertolt Brecht, Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre and Marguerite Duras.

      The theatre started with the 400-seat proscenium arch Theatre Downstairs, and in 1969 opened a second theatre, the 60-seat studio Theatre Upstairs. Some productions transfer to the West End, such as Terry Johnson’s Hitchcock Blonde, Caryl Churchill’s Far Away and Conor McPherson’s The Weir. Recent touring productions include Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis (US tour) and Ché Walker’s Flesh Wound (Galway Arts Festival). The Royal Court also co-produces plays which have transferred to the West End or toured internationally, such as Conor McPherson’s Shining City (with Gate Theatre, Dublin), Sebastian Barry’s The Steward of Christendom and Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking (with Out of Joint), Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (with Druid), Ayub Khan Din’s East is East (with Tamasha).

      Since 1994 the Royal Court’s artistic policy has again been vigorously directed to finding and producing a new generation of playwrights. The writers include Joe Penhall, Rebecca Prichard, Michael Wynne, Nick Grosso, Judy Upton, Meredith Oakes, Sarah Kane, Anthony Neilson, Judith Johnson, James Stock, Jez Butterworth, Marina Carr, Phyllis Nagy, Simon Block, Martin McDonagh, Mark Ravenhill, Ayub Khan Din, Tamantha Hammerschlag, Jess Walters, Ché Walker, Conor McPherson, Simon Stephens, Richard Bean, Roy Williams, Gary Mitchell, Mick Mahoney, Rebecca Gilman, Christopher Shinn, Kia Corthron, David Gieselmann, Marius von Mayenburg, David Eldridge, Leo Butler, Zinnie Harris, Grae Cleugh, Roland Schimmelpfennig, Chloe Moss, DeObia Oparei, Enda Walsh, Vassily Sigarev, the Presnyakov Brothers, Marcos Barbosa, Lucy Prebble, John Donnelly, Clare Pollard, Robin French, Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder, Rob Evans and Laura Wade. This expanded programme of new plays has been made possible through the support of A.S.K. Theater Projects and the Skirball Foundation, The Jerwood Charity, the American Friends of the Royal Court Theatre and (in 1994/5 and 1999) in association with the National Theatre Studio.

      In recent years there have been record-breaking productions at the box office, with capacity houses for Joe Penhall’s Dumb Show, Conor McPherson’s Shining City, Roy Williams’ Fallout and Terry Johnson’s Hitchcock Blonde.

      The refurbished theatre in Sloane Square opened in February 2000, with a policy still inspired by the first artistic director George Devine. The Royal Court is an international theatre for new plays and new playwrights, and the work shapes contemporary drama in Britain and overseas.

      INTERNATIONAL PLAYWRIGHTS

      Since 1992 the Royal